Well, our home study is scheduled! At least the first meeting! It's May 14! I guess I hadn't expected it to happen so fast. I figured it would be at least summer before we started this part of the process. But here we are!

I'm going a little crazy now trying to look at our house through the eyes of a stranger who is supposed to be analyzing every detail! And I'm seeing flaws in our home that I hadn't noticed or given too much attention to before...Like the spot where our old dog (now my mom's dog), Rosa, chewed a small portion of the woodwork on the steps. Or the stain in the ugly blue living room carpet that I can't seem to steam clean out (probably an apple juice stain). Or Asher's room in general: newer dinosaur themed bedding with the old nursery "under the sea" theme still painted on the walls. Oh, and the serious clutter of crap on our dresser! I just need a dumpster for that! And then there's the kitchen remodel stuff still piled in random corners...thankfully, there's less and less of that every day. And our garage! Oh, we cleaned and organized it, but it's full of garage sale stuff! We are going to look like hoarders!

But our social worker said she expected our house to look "lived in." So, I'm trying not to freak out too much about the little stuff. We've got about a month to get this under control. Declutter. Organize. It's stuff that needed to get done anyway!

On another note, we had to change something on our application regarding our kids' education...Wait for it....We had to uncheck the "public education" box because we are going to be homeschooling next year! I know, it's something I swore I would never, ever do. But like this adoption, it's something that I felt God calling us to do earlier this school year. And I tried to ignore it. Tried to fight it off. But the calling just got stronger. I haven't had peace about Landyn's situation at school--both emotionally and academically. Literally, there was a 2 week period where she came home crying every day. And there are some major safety issues in her building that are not being addressed. I have disliked this school year on so many levels. So, after much frustration and even more prayer, we decided to do it! And we got our letter from the county yesterday saying they approved my curriculum plan for 2012-2013!

Thankfully, our kids are super excited about this! (Which is also a huge answer to prayer!) And the dormant teacher who's been living inside me since I left my first grade classroom to stay home with Landyn is thrilled! I will actually get some use of the 12 totes of teacher stuff in our crawl space! And I get to teach my kids how to love to learn...not just how to take a standardized test. (I've now met my set limit for jabs at our public education system, and I shall complain no more.)

Also, this will make it very simple for us to pack up and take our kids with us to Colombia at a moment's notice! When the time comes... And part of our curriculum is learning Spanish, which will help my kids communicate and relate to their little sibs...if we get a toddler or preschooler who is already speaking Spanish.

All in all, things are moving right along! Once the home study is complete, we finish up our dossier (which will take months, from what I understand), and then it goes to Colombia! And then we wait...some more. But I've got homeschooling to keep me busy in the meantime! So, I won't have time to be anxious!